


A Pound of Cure

by MasteroftheCrypticArts



Series: MotCA's Crossovers [1]
Category: Into the Badlands (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 14:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17226083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasteroftheCrypticArts/pseuds/MasteroftheCrypticArts
Summary: Doctor Strange has been thrown five centuries into the future, where American civilization as we know it has long ago collapsed and given way to a reemergence of feudalism.





	A Pound of Cure

**Author's Note:**

> This work is mostly experimental exposition that establishes a base of operations for Doctor Strange in the Badlands. This story was originally meant to be a collaborative work with an Iron Fist roleplayer, but because we never got it off the ground, I might weave a solo narrative out of this myself. Or I might let this stand alone. If you'd like to read more of a Marvel/Into the Badlands crossover, by all means, let me know. I might just get enough muse to get this thing going.

❝ _Tʜᴇ ᴡᴀʀs ᴡᴇʀᴇ sᴏ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴀɢᴏ ɴᴏʙᴏᴅʏ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀs. Dᴀʀᴋɴᴇss ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴇᴀʀ ʀᴜʟᴇᴅ ᴜɴᴛɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴀʀᴏɴs, sᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴍᴇɴ ᴀɴᴅ ᴡᴏᴍᴇɴ ᴡʜᴏ ꜰᴏʀɢᴇᴅ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴄʜᴀᴏs. Pᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ꜰʟᴏᴄᴋᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ꜰᴏʀ ᴘʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ. Tʜᴀᴛ ᴘʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴍᴇ sᴇʀᴠɪᴛᴜᴅᴇ. Tʜᴇʏ ʙᴀɴɪsʜᴇᴅ ɢᴜɴs ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʀᴀɪɴᴇᴅ ᴀʀᴍɪᴇs ᴏꜰ ʟᴇᴛʜᴀʟ ꜰɪɢʜᴛᴇʀs ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ Cʟɪᴘᴘᴇʀs. Tʜɪs ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ɪs ʙᴜɪʟᴛ ᴏɴ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ. Nᴏʙᴏᴅʏ ɪs ɪɴɴᴏᴄᴇɴᴛ ʜᴇʀᴇ. Wᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ Bᴀᴅʟᴀɴᴅs._ ❞  
  
—M.K.

 

 

Blood-stained hands plunged into a basin up with water, giving it a pink tincture. Stephen Strange, once-decommissioned doctor, was back in the business.

"Be careful," he warned his patient. "Unless you want to pay for more stitches—which I'd happily entreat, mind you—don't tear yours."

A grimy, sweaty face glared at him with owl eyes.

"You're welcome," he replied.

The Nomad paid his sum, rose from the examination table and headed for the front door of Stephen's house. He said nothing but the tip of his longsword scraping a harsh line across the floorboards behind him said plenty.

"Wait," Stephen called. The Nomad stopped and turned. Stephen held up a small bottle between two fingers.

"Your antibiotic."

He tossed it. The Nomad caught it, eyed the thing, then continued on his way.

" _Wicker_ ," he growled under his breath. Stephen rolled his eyes. Two months in this hellscape and he still couldn't take the insult seriously. How had the word _fuck_ disappeared from the English language? It was the absurdest thing he'd yet to discover about this post-apocalyptic world. The apparent gun ban across the Badlands came a close second. At first, he appreciated this but quickly revoked his opinion when faced with the brutality that saturated this forsaken place. Guns were impersonal but civil. Blades were intimate and barbaric. Stephen had wielded a blade or two himself during his tenure as a Master of the Mystic Arts but the scale of violence he witnessed toward _fellow human beings_ in the Badlands was nigh on intolerable. Stephen retreated from it however much he could and this led him back onto the medicinal path.

Stephen lived alone in a small cottage with three stories: the cellar floor, the ground floor, and an attic floor. The cellar was unfinished, hardly more than a pit in the earth. The ground floor had a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a bathroom, and a study. Stephen didn't need the luxury of a living room so he converted it to his infirmary, which sat out front of the study. The second floor was a furbished, open space with a vaulted ceiling. This was his bedchamber.

Since he had his house all to himself once again, he decided to retreat to his study and continue reading up on natural medicine. Not only was Stephen several years out of practice, his area of expertise was but one, limited scope of knowledge. If he were to be a successful physician in the Badlands, he had to acquire more knowledge than what could be applied to brain surgery. It didn't help considering that osteopathic knowledge in this time period was apparently scarce. Stephen gleaned what he could from the only library within reasonable traveling distance of his location. For additional materials, he had to barter with traders and smugglers. (He managed by luck and wit to acquire a few dependable, but not totally trustworthy contacts.) On a technological front, medicine had backtracked decades. In some respects, centuries. Hospitals were replaced by makeshift healing huts and shanty clinics. Latex gloves were a thing of the past but cardiac monitors and x-ray machines managed to survive. Medicine (as he knew and loved it) became so diminished as a practice that it was almost reduced to a _tradition_ rather than a basic sociological necessity. It stunned him.

But where the Badlands was wanting of skilled healers, Stephen Strange saw opportunity.

He studied and practiced his way back to greatness. However, he had to foresight to know that making himself exceptional was risky. Stephen had to maintain a certain buoyancy as a physician, lingering far enough below the surface to escape scrutiny (and subsequent self-endangerment) but showcasing enough excellence to secure a clientele sizeable enough to yield disposable income for his "leisurely" exploits. Namely, the acquisition of occult literature.

Magic was different here. Stephen could feel it the moment he arrived in the future. It was barely a whisper on his skin. Stephen had no idea what happened to magic in the span of five hundred years but what was once a lush garden was now a desert landscape. It appeared that there were no Gifted people around anymore, either. No one that he had yet encountered or learned of was enhanced or endowed with spectacular abilities. Stephen wondered if the cataclysm that created this desolate world had somehow wiped them all out. Denizens of this era all claimed that it had been a war that ended American civilization but the widespread, social amnesia regarding the details of the event perturbed him. He guessed that this phenomenon was a byproduct of the Time Stone's destruction. Memory had literally been lost to time because Time was no more.

There was a reason that one's use of the Infinity Stone for time travel was extremely limited. The Time Stone was supposedly indestructible but Stephen found out that if it traveled far enough from its moment of origin, it would break. Ironically, time itself was the tool of its own destruction. But he knew that the temporal laws his universe abided by had been shattered as well. It was how a resurgence of societal nobility could happen in a land that once boasted that all men were equal, how Eastern cultures could surge and have profound influence on the militarism of the day. But just because the Time Stone was removed from its natural course in the past didn't mean that it stopped existing in the future. It was still a fixed construct, constant. If his hypothesis was correct, a paradox of two Time Stones existing at the same time was what destroyed his Stone. Stephen only had straws to grasp. It was possible that if a second Stone existed it, too, was destroyed upon his arrival. Or the Stone native to the future neutralized the Stone from the past--whittling it from existence. If he was lucky, it not only existed, he knew where it did.

The Badlands were formed from the ashes of the western Deep South, the eastern Southwest, and the southern Midwest.

New York City was a far, far cry from home.

Stephen, unable to focus on his copy of _The Herbal Apothecary_ , closed it and left the study. He passed through the infirmary, turned left into the hallway and entered the kitchen through the doorway at the opposite end. He pulled down a retractable ladder from where it was folded up into the ceiling and climbed into the attic space that he had furnished into his bedchamber.

Here he stored his occult literature in secret. A large map of the Badlands was pasted onto one of the slanted partitions of the vaulted ceiling. All around the room, series of glyphs and sigils were painted. Some were failed, experimental attempts to reclaim magic, and others were protection runes that may well have been effectively obsolete and delusionally superstitious. Stephen kneeled before his map and stared at it.

The eastern border of the Badlands lay just miles from what used to be the Mississippi River. The topographical details fizzled out past the Badlands' sovereign borders but with the help of various vagabonds from outside the Wall, he managed to expand the breadth of the map onto the sheetrock with pencils and paint. He was no cartographer but he drew it all to scale to the best of his ability. Now he would add the latest piece of his ever-broadening puzzle. Out of a small pouch he procured a folded up piece of parchment. The Nomad's payment for his treatment just earlier. With some coinage to boot.

 

 

 


End file.
